Outdated rules hurt TV viewers

Hot coffee but no “Today” show. In for the night but no Jay Leno or David Letterman. Ready for baseball season? Not so fast.

If you’re like us and you love TV sports, news and entertainment, those scenarios seem like a bad dream. But they are the nightmares our customers and our companies are waking up to these days.

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Our companies — DirecTV and Time Warner Cable — fight hard for business every day. We don’t always see eye to eye. But we’re both tired of the black eye that broadcaster blackouts are giving the TV industry. So we’re speaking out with one voice to stop them — and urge Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to reform outdated rules.

A broadcaster blackout can happen when disputes occur over retransmission consent agreements. Some broadcasters are using our favorite shows and sports as leverage — pulling the plug on the signal and holding shows and sports hostage until they can strike an agreement that pays them as much money as possible. Last year, these disputes resulted in broadcasters blacking out local TV stations watched by millions of viewers in nearly 40 cities.

This trend is continuing, including Tribune Broadcasting’s blackout in 19 major media markets — including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, Dallas and Baltimore that lasted almost a week. This nearly deprived fans of the New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs of baseball games. Some fans have not been so lucky — a blackout on the Braves’ Atlanta station continues.

The root of the problem is outdated regulations that give numerous advantages to broadcasters. In retransmission consent agreements, under federal rules, local broadcasters negotiate fees with providers like us so we can carry — or retransmit — their channels on our lineups. These payments are in addition to the copyright fees we pay for this programming.

In the past few years, as broadcasters’ overall revenue declined in the poor economy, they began trying to make up losses by demanding outsize retransmission fee increases — that ultimately get passed along to our customers. Since 2006, the fees that companies like ours pay to broadcasters have increased nearly sevenfold — for example, from $215 million to more than $1.5 billion last year. This drives up the cost of TV for everyone. Most significant, broadcasters use threats and blackouts of their stations to enforce their demands.